That's Not My Name
by idioticonion
Summary: Set directly after Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. This is a crossover with a film NPH made many years ago called "The Animal Room" and presumes that Dr Horrible is the main character Arnold , now grown up.


Billy wasn't his real name. Nor Tommy. Nor Roger. Nor David. Nor any of the fifty different aliases he'd gone by over the years. He wondered why Penny didn't see right through it the moment he'd offered her that name? He stumbled over the word, just as he stumbled over any but his real name. He wondered why he'd bothered to change it? After all, who would remember Arnold Mosk? Arnie… Such a stupid name. The only people who could get away with a name like that and _not_ get the shit kicked out of them were men with muscles the size of his whole chest.

Billy - it had seemed like a good name. Good old Bill! Billy - just affectionate enough, just vulnerable enough. Billy, Billy was your buddy. Your pal. Billy was another good name to hide behind.

He looked down at the shattered pieces of the death ray in his hands. He'd never been able to do it (coward) - to kill anyone (yellow-bellied coward). Not even himself! His hand drifted up to his temple, to the barely-visible scar which is all he carried from the shooting.

He'd been barely eighteen years old when he'd been shot…

Perhaps that was why he couldn't pull the trigger and incinerate Captain Hammer? Even though he'd had more cause - more cause even than to kill Doug. Jesus! A decade since Van Hauser and he still excelled at being bullied. Arnold Mosk could take a beating like no one else.

And nothing mattered - not the years of therapy and drug-rehab, not immersing himself in his studies, not becoming Doctor Horrible, not the acceptance into the ELE. Nothing would ever change the fact that he was, and would ever be, Arnold Mosk. He could never escape that.

If the death ray was still functional, would he have the guts to turn it on himself? He knew what gun metal tasted like - knew the feel of it jammed between his teeth, his fingers feathering against the trigger, eyes screwed shut while he told himself to shoot… shoot…

And the alternative was..? Pull the gun on a school security guard? On a cop? On a hero? How long till someone shot him again?

Arnold knew very well how lucky he'd been the first time - the bullet hadn't caused much damage. He only wish it had…

"I want your blood in my mouth", Doug had told him.

Captain Hammer had said as much, with every punch, with every kick, with every sneer. What was it about Arnold Mosk that attracted the lowest, most evil person in the vicinity to obsess about torturing him? Did he have some neon sign with "victim" pinned to his back?

"Kick me…?" He mumbled.

"What?" Moist looked up from where he was busy dampening some circuit boards.

"Hmm?" Arnold frowned, needing a second before he was drawn back into the present. He saw pity in Moist's expression.

Let him think this was about Penny's death, thought Arnold. Let Moist think life was that simple. Doctor Horrible in mourning…

"Did you say something, Doc?" Moist asked tentatively. It was weird to think that anyone would ever be scared of Arnold Mosk, but wasn't that what he'd worked for, all these years? A time when even a picture of him would strike terror into someone. It was the red coat, wasn't it? The red coat, the goggles, the name… all excellent devices to hide behind.

"No." He said, resigned. Trouble was, it had never really made a difference and it still didn't. He was still scared, was still intimidated, was still so painfully tentative. Yet he seemed to care less and less as the years went by - as if resigned to his fate, to what he was inside, even as he changed everything that other people saw.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," He muttered. Shakespeare again? Some irony! Penny had seen something in him - good or bad. She was probably the only one since Gary… And guess what fate had in store for her? Arnold should have known: The moment he let anyone else get close, they were doomed. All he wanted now was oblivion.

"Are you okay, Doc?" Moist looked concerned.

Doctor Horrible flipped down the tinted lenses of his goggles and inched them carefully over his eyes.

"I've got everything I ever wanted," He said softly, bending down to work on the death ray. He smiled coldly. Everything he ever wanted? He let out a mirthless chuckle. Perhaps one day.


End file.
